There would be no games without game designers, as there would be no movies or books without writers, no articles without journalists, and no sculptures without sculptors. Game designers create the works that actually give the game companies their reason to exist. But as with all cultural works, games, and therefore their authors, need legal protection, too.

The FACHGRUPPE SPIEL e.V. (since March 2014: Spieleverlage e.V.), the federation of German game companies, refuses to acknowledge that game designers are originators under German Copyright Act. And the Fachgruppe denies so to acknowledge that the Game Designer Association (Spiele-Autoren-Zunft e.V., SAZ) is the representative association of game designers – it is only a group of "suppliers".

We therefore call for the acknoledgment that game designers, as a matter of course, are authors under German Copyright Act. Help us to enforce this demand!

About us: The Spiele-Autoren-Zunft e.V. (SAZ / Game Designer Association) represents over 400 members worldwide and has now written an open letter to the FACHGRUPPE SPIEL and its member publishers plus a legal opinion under the title "Intellectual Property Rights Regarding Games". Clear conclusion: There is no convincing argument to doubt the rights of game designers as originators of their works.

Background information is available here.The German version of the petition is here- please sign only once!